


You put your arms around me and I'm home

by Sapphire_blue



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/M, R plus L equals J
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-13
Updated: 2015-05-18
Packaged: 2018-03-07 11:22:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 2,745
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3172486
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sapphire_blue/pseuds/Sapphire_blue
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Seeing her after years, it almost takes his breath away. If Lyanna Stark, his mother, was anything like Arya, he understands why men would go to war for her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. And it took so long just to feel alright

When his little sister comes back to him, he hardly recognizes her. Of course, he rationalizes to himself, the last time he had seen her was what seems like a lifetime ago. He had said goodbye to her before the Wall, before everything. This woman, the one who barges into the Targaryen camp and demands to be taken to Lord Snow, holds little resemblance to the little girl who had rained kisses on him years ago.

But he knows it is her, even when his half-brother, Aegon, is staring at him, he knows she is the little girl he had lost years ago. He will recognize those eyes anywhere. He runs towards her and crushes her lithe body to her chest. There are tears in his eyes, he thinks, but he cares very little of them. Arya is here and in his arms, and that’s all he cares about.

“Arya,” he whispers, so soft that he himself barely hears it.

Arya is tall now, head reaching up to his shoulders, and her hair is matted with dirt and blood. Her eyes are dull, almost empty, but a little spark of awe registers in them as she looks up at him.

“I found you,” she breathes, and the air between them fogs with mist.

“You did, little sister,” Jon mutters against her neck.

She pulls back a little and frown mars her pretty face. He’s always known that she’d grow up to be beautiful, but her beauty has a sense of the wilderness in it. She is wild and beautiful. Seeing her after years, it almost takes his breath away. If Lyanna Stark, his mother, was anything like Arya, he understands why men would go to war for her.

“- I heard you were dead,” Arya was saying but he looked around them to realize that the men were staring at them, staring at her.

He lets go of her and takes her hands in his instead, “Come inside the tent. I have much to tell you.”

Arya smiles, it doesn’t reach her eyes, not completely, but there’s something soft in them as she looks at him, “And I have much to tell you.”

 

 


	2. Remember how to put back the light in my eyes

She doesn't speak much, but she never strays too far from him. After more than half a decade of not seeing her, he knows he’s doing much the same thing. She tells him of her journey, of what happened to her after Lord Stark was executed. He knows that she is not telling him everything, and he finds that he doesn't mind. Arya’s entitled to her own secrets, after all, although he suspects her secrets are as much for her sake as his own.

It’s been two days since she’s come back, and she sleeps very little, but when she does, it is in his tent. She sleeps in the crook of his arm, wild hair a tangle around them both, and he cannot find it within himself to push her away. She has been offered her own tent the first night, with a handmaiden of her own, but she vehemently shoots it down the moment it comes up.

“I’m not a lady,” she tells them, him and Aegon, “And I won’t leave Jon.” Although Aegon looks like he wants to protest, after a look from Jon, he grudgingly quiets down.

He knows that men will talk, but he finds that he cares little of what they think. Arya has come back home, and he knows he will deny her nothing. He is all that she has left, and he cannot (and _will not_ ) deny her comfort and familiarity in the name of propriety. He finds that he does not event want to. Despite Aegon, despite his newfound Targaryen ancestry, she is all that he has left too.

“Why now? After all this time, why have you come back now?” He asks her that night, after Aegon has retired to his own tent for the night.

She looks up from the dagger she is examining and the intensity of her gaze staggers him a little, and very quietly, she speaks, “Heard from a group of men that your Black brothers betrayed you, almost killed you, and I couldn’t fool myself anymore. I am Arya Stark of Winterfell, and it was time I remembered that.”

She looks away from him, her gaze far away, going somewhere he couldn’t follow, and her lips twisted in a bitter smile. He leaves her in their tent; he can’t bear the sight of sadness on her face.

Lord Jon Connington despairs over her resemblance to Lyanna Stark, and he does not hide it well. In fact, he does not try to hide it at all.

“History must not repeat itself,” he tells both him and Aegon.

Jon knows that he should correct him, tell him that he and Arya are not like that. He knows that he should say that Arya is his little sister. Except, he left Arya the little sister for the Wall, and the woman that has found her way back to him is so much more to him.

_Absence does make the heart grow fonder_ , he thinks with a twist of his lips.

So, instead, he says, “We are not Rhaegar and Lyanna."

And they are not. They are Jon Targaryen and Arya Stark, and he knows that whatever happens between them, they will make better choices.

_Love is the death of duty,_ he remembers old Aemon saying when he first joined the Wall. He knows the truth of those words; he chose to abandon his duty as the Lord Commander and almost died for his love for Arya. But he also knows that he had a duty to Arya, and he put it over his duty to his Black brothers.

He wishes that he could see old Aemon now.

_“Love is a duty_ , old man,” he would tell him wryly. He wonders how the maester would reply to that. 


	3. You're the closest I can get to being close

"There was a girl once," Jon tells her on the third night. Arya doesn't say anything, just stares at him with steely grey eyes, eyes that mirror his own. He takes her silence as a sign to continue.

"I loved her. I think she loved me too."

Arya gazes at him for a long moment, and then says, "There was a boy for me too. I could have loved him, I think." she looks away from him then, “I’m glad I didn't. Love is such a fickle thing."

Jon takes in her profile, the way she's sitting up with her back straight, and the way she faces the entrance of the tent, and wonders what has happened to her.

He's pulled out of his thoughts by Arya's low voice, "Gendry reminded me of you. I could have loved him."

They don't say anything else for the rest of the night, both lost in thoughts of fire kissed women and hot headed bulls.

 

* * *

 

 

He wakes up with Arya's face buried in his neck. He feels the curve of her lips against his warm skin, and wonders what she would do if he kisses her at this moment. Not as a brother kisses a sister, oh no, but as a man kisses a woman. He doesn't, though, he doesn't kiss her. In the end, he goes back to sleep with Arya's body a comfortable presence beside him. There is still 2 hours until morn, after all.

* * *

 

 

In the morning, he breaks his fast with Arya.

"Do you think Sansa is happy at the Vale?" She asks with a frown tugging at her lips.

Jon takes a moment to answer her, "Harrold Hardyng loves her, and according to her letters, she has come to care for him. I would think that yes, she is happy there."

There is a moment of silence, but Arya’s voice cuts through it like a sharp knife.

"I saw her screaming," she says abruptly, "the day they executed father, I saw her."

"Arya-" Jon makes to stop her, but she pays him no mind.

"She was up there, and she was screaming. She was begging that monster for mercy. Yoren wouldn't let me watch when the sword came down on his neck, but I could hear it. Father -" she stops and closes her eyes and continues, “I heard her screaming. Her screams stopped when the sword came down. She fainted."

She opens her eyes and they are like pools of ice, but there is a fire ignited in them, "I can still hear her screams. Sweet, gentle Sansa, and they made her scream. I remember that I wanted to kill everyone there. Cersei, Joffrey, Ser Ilyne Payne, the crowd who chanted for Father's head. I wanted to kill everyone. I wanted to make them scream like they made Sansa scream. I wanted to make them _pay_."

Jon's heart almost breaks at the look of vengeance upon Arya's beautiful face, yet he does not say a word. He gives her time to calm down, to even out her harsh breathing.

"I'm glad that she is happy," she says quietly after a moment, “at least one of us is. She deserves it after all that has happened."

"And what of you, Arya?" Jon asks softly, "Do you not deserve happiness?"

She looks at him and there is a flash of pity in her eyes, and the barest hint of a smile in the twist of her lips, "I cannot afford the luxury of such illusions, Jon."

Jon's heart hammers in his chest as he tells her gently, "I can make you happy."

Arya caresses the side of his face then, and steps back to make her way out of the tent. Just as she's about to step outside, she speaks with her back still turned to him.

"If it pleases you, Jon Snow, you are the closest I can get to being happy."


	4. Home is where your heart is

When Jon emerges from the tent, he finds Arya deep in conversation with Aegon, discussing fighting techniques. Jon Connington sits beside them with a frown upon his face. Aegon looks entirely too interested in what Arya is saying, and he likes it not. Jon knows what Connington is thinking. Aegon is to marry their aunt, Daenerys Stormborn, when she crosses the narrow sea, and crown her his Queen. If Aegon decided to follow in their father’s steps, the kingdom might erupt into another war, and this time the kingdom will turn to ashes. Still, Jon knows his brother, and he knows that he will not follow that particular legacy.

“Jon! There you are!” Arya smiles at him as he makes his way towards them.

“Brother!” Aegon greets him, and for a moment Jon sees a shadow fall upon Arya’s face, but it is gone before he even blinks.

“I was just telling Aegon that if we were to par, I would beat him,” she informs him with a smirk.

Aegon scoffs, “And I was saying that if she happened to win, it would be only because I let her beat me.”

Jon Connington makes a strangled noise beside them, and Jon thinks he sees Arya’s lips curling in amusement.

He quickly steps between Arya and Aegon, and is about to say something when someone calls for the King’s attention.

Jon offers Arya his arm, “Come, take a walk with me.”

She accepts his arm, and they leave Aegon and Connington to discuss battle tactics.

 

*   *   *

 

They walk through the woods and emerge into a clearing. Jon tugs Arya closer to him, and she leans into him quietly.

“It is not wise to torment Connington,” Jon tells her.

“He thinks I am Aunt Lyanna. He looks at me and he sees a ghost. But I am not. I am not my Aunt,” she answers.

“Maybe you should let him see that,” Jon suggest cautiously.

Arya huffs, “He will always see a ghost no matter how hard I try. Besides, why should I even try? I do not owe him anything.”

“Arya –“ he begins but is cut off by her snarl.

“You and I both know that the only reason I am here is because you are here. I do not care about Aegon, I do not care about Connington, and I do not bloody care about who sits on that bloody Iron Throne!”

“Aegon is my brother, Arya,” he reminds her staunchly.

She smiles at him bitterly then, “There was a time when you were my brother too.”

Abruptly, she lets go of his arm and grabs at the hilt of her sword nestled against her hips, “Spar with me.”

Jon halts in his footsteps, bewildered, “What?”

She gestures at his sword and then at the clearing, “You have your sword, I have mine, and there is no one here to bother us. Spar with me.”

Jon tentatively cups her cheek with one hand, “I know you are mad at me-”

She leans into his palm and closes her eyes, “You know nothing, Jon Snow.”

The familiar phrase unnerves him, and he is yet again struck by the similarities between Arya and Ygritte. Ygritte had been as stubborn as Arya, and look where it had got her. He ponders the fates of the women Arya holds similarities to, and it worries him. It scares him more than anything he has ever faced.

He sighs, dropping his hand from her cheek, “Fine. Only this one time, and then we must get back.”

She nods, and unsheathes her sword. _Needle_. He unsheathes his and takes a stance just as Arya does. She is standing sideways though, and he remembers that she had lessons from a Braavosi sword master in King’s Landing. _Water Dancing_ , she called it.

First thing he realizes is that she is quick. Whenever his sword comes anywhere near her, she dances out of the way. _She is wearing me down_ , he realizes, and sure enough he is panting and his sword falters just for a moment, and that is when Arya strikes. In a movement too fast for his eyes to track, she lunges forward, and knocks him down on his back, his grasp at his sword faltering at the suddenness of it all. Arya kicks it away to out of his reach, and straddles him, with Needle pointing at his throat.

“Remember what you told me all those years ago? What you said the first lesson of sword fighting was?” She grins down at him, eyes glittering with mirth.

He remembers, _oh_ , he remembers. How could he ever forget? He has repeated those words to himself countless times over the years. He gently grabs the hand holding the hilt of Needle and curs his fingers around hers. “Stick them with the pointy end.”

Her eyes sparkle at the memory, and with the wilderness all around them, he thinks, _this is the girl he almost died for. This is the girl who he has always loved and who has always loved him even when he was a bastard. This is the girl, no, woman, who has always had his heart._

With the hand still curled around hers, he guides the sword away from his neck. She makes to get off him, but he quickly grabs onto her waist, stilling her on top of him.

Slowly, _very slowly_ , he starts tugging her down, giving her enough time to pull away. She does not. As their faces get closer, she watches him with an intensity that makes the blood in his veins hum with longing.

When their lips are a mere inch apart, Arya speaks, and her breath imprints itself upon his own, “Love is for children," she pauses momentarily before continuing, "But I have loved you since I was a child. Everywhere I went, everyone I have been, I have always longed for home. I have always longed for you, to be with you, because you have always been my home,” she pauses again to exhale slightly, “You once told me that different roads sometimes lead to the same castle, and here we are.”

Jon closes the space between them, and as their lips meet for the first time, he feels like he is whole again. He twines his fingers in her hair, and marvels at the softness of it. When they break their kiss, he rasps, “Home is where your heart is, and my heart has always been with you.”

She laughs then, the bright, _beautiful_ sound echoing in the clearing, and declares joyfully, “We are home, Jon. We are _finally_ home!”


End file.
